Peppermint and Peanut Butter
by FountainPenguin
Summary: After a day and a half pinned on a houseboat with the other eliminated Pahkitew Island competitors, Scarlett is nearing the end of her figurative rope. If she doesn't get something evil done soon, she may just have to chop off her own hair. Well... not really. Let's not be so drastic now. She could settle for flinging a few particular chatterboxes overboard. (Written June 2016)


This piece was written to be a direct sequel to my story, "Turning Scarlett". You might want to read that first. But you might also want to do a lot of things.

* * *

There are arguably six agreed-upon steps in the scientific method, and I loathe all of them. The fiddling around, experimenting with stuff - taking risks and chances, even when you might be wrong and your dedicated work has been for nothing - that's all Max's department, because he's a dandelion-brained imbecile who works at insane speeds and lives off three hours of sleep a night (when it's a good week), and so wasting the last nine months chasing a pointless idea means very little to him. He doesn't care about _results_ , and that's such a large chunk of why I can't stand him that it's really quite ridiculous in actuality, if one should take a few paces back and study our partnership from the outside.

Personally, I consider my time far too important to waste in dribble-drabble. I study the psychology of people and animals because I happen to think they're interesting and useful and because they're easy to come by. I rarely participate in anything quote-unquote important if I don't have definitive proof or at least a fair estimate of what the results will be and that they're worthy of my attention. I'll use my crushing inability to blackmail Chris into handing me the million dollars in exchange for not blowing up his island as my case in point.

But even when we combined my people knowledge with his annoyingly-painstaking scientific processes, neither Max nor I could shake off one particular jabbering, nosy little louse of a shipmate, and that landed us both in a sour mood. We'd both slept for most of our first day following our reunion with the other ex-contestants, and so our first "real" morning on the post-elimination houseboat went rather like this:

We asked a question: Will Leonard leave us alone to plot our evil houseboat takeover if Scarlett "accidentally" flips him over the railing of the top deck and all the way down into the lake?

We performed extensive background research: Unfortunately, a source by the name of Christopher "Topher" Cummings suggested that the nasal-voiced lunatic in question would shake himself off and come bounding back, chipper and talkative as ever.

We constructed a hypothesis: After we get through with him, he'll back off. He'd freaking better back off.

We put the hypothesis to the test: The materials in question were two hands, a plastic spoon, and a miniature sailboat.

We analyzed the data and drew up our concluding statement: Leonard is the most oblivious twit either of us have met in our entire lives, much to our own confusion.

We recorded our results: June 28th, 2013; I am so full of done right now.

"So I take it it didn't work?" Topher guessed as he watched me storm up the hall and throw myself beside him on the couch in the living room - slash - kitchen. Max followed me with his ears folded to his skull and eyelids screwed up like the lids on the jars of peanut butter I'd carried out to the motorboat yesterday, and the soaking Leonard trotted after us as he shook crayons and balls of tinfoil from some sort of hidden pockets in the gaping sleeves of his green robes.

"-feels good to feel the water on my face again. I've mostly been slightly too hesitant to plunge into the water myself, seeing as it's so salty and my swimsuit got wrecked by the robotic raccoons and badgers after the zeppelin crash and I'm really not the best at swimming as it is anyway, which you'd know if you'd have seen me crash on the wakeboard we dragged behind the motorboat the other day - probably I ought to cast a gillbreathe spell to ensure my safety, but you need a polished piece of glass to even make it last long enough for it to be worth half the time and effort you spent preparing it (although I might could try a transformation spell instead, if I substituted a dozen snake-eyed dice for a four-leaf clover) - but my foster siblings would shove me in the water all the time back when I was smaller, albeit in the pool in our backyard which was understandably chlorinated and unsalted. So the gist of what I'm saying is that of course I forgive you, Scarlett; accidents happen. My parents raised me to be a gentleman with manners worthy of winning a princess one day, despite the fact that I don't particularly care for that sort of thing, although I do appreciate having Tammy around and technically I am da-"

I rolled over on the couch and ran my fingers through the lopsided bun I'd pulled my bright red hair into. "Leonard, did you at last break into your powers and manage to cast a spell on yourself that renders it physically impossible for you to either shut off your voice or take a breath every several minutes?"

"Would you even kiss your mother with that motormouth, filthy magpie?" grunted Max.

Our little wannabe wizard wrinkled his freckled nose. "I'm adopted and so technically that's still kind of incest, but disregarding that detail, I'd kiss everyone with this mouth. It's the only one I have. If there's such a thing as a spell that allows you to swap out that particular physical feature, I for one have not yet stumbled across it. Now, if you had one of Great TOM's pencils, that would be a different matter altogether. But to answer you, Scarlett, of course I can stop talking. No one else on this houseboat has the skill to overcome my natural magical defenses, and I certainly wouldn't waste such a marvelous hex on myself. Not that I couldn't pull it off if I wanted to, despite it being one of the more complicated spells in the basic manual. At minimum a tongue-binding curse would require the down of a newly-hatched dove, a ring made of iron, and a pinch of cinnamon, and even though I secured my mortar and pestle and my other potion equipment after Samey, Beardo and I embarked on that quest to the wreck-"

"I got this," Topher muttered to me; evidently, I was not the only one on this boat with an eye for reading people (though granted I had lost my glasses back on the island and was struggling), and he had concluded from the flare of my nostrils and twitch of my lower lip that if I had to take much more of this, Scarlett Jezebel Valentine was going to snap.

Thus far, Max and I had done a surprisingly fine job of concealing the evil details leading up to our double-elimination, and it wouldn't have done me many favors in the end to out myself here. Certainly once he learned my true identity Leonard wouldn't dare stand so close to me, and equally certainly I would be flung off the houseboat in disgrace and abandoned to either drown in the ocean or starve on an island littered with psychotic robots and an ever-shifting chaotic environment. No. I'd rather take his chatter.

Topher climbed to his feet and linked his fingers behind his head. "Leonard, don't you have contracts and legal papers for Ridonculous Race to be finishing up? I'm pretty sure the other day we had a very lengthy discussion on how the pixies don't allow any kind of magic to interfere with legal documents, including deadline extensions."

"Yeah, I do, all right, fine. I kinda want to be changing out of these wet clothes, too." Leonard pulled his green robes over his head to reveal his bare, scrawny chest and mottled gray sweatpants, hung them on a hook outside the bathroom, and opened the door to the nearest bedroom on its left. Well, my left looking at it. Its right. Don't ask me difficult questions when I'm still adjusting to the sound of precious silence. I groaned after he'd disappeared.

" _Thank you_ , Topher. You are the kind of person who would be worth sparing if I ran the world."

"No prob, Scarlett. And by the way, we keep forgetting to tell you, but in that cabinet under the TV?" He gestured to it with his thumb. "Pretty sure your bags are under there, if you want to grab those."

Max caught my eye and I nodded. He pulled out his own purple backpack, and correctly identified the bright red and shiny suitcase as mine without having to ask for clarification. As he brought it to me, he said, "And how precisely did you manage to obtain these packets of belongings seeing as we were all there to witness the zeppelin come crashing down?"

"Beardo and Leonard pulled them out of the wreckage their first week here, or so I heard."

I hugged the case to my chest, the wheels spinning across my skirt and leaving a disgusting but manageable dusting of grime. "Did any of you peek at what's inside?"

Topher raised his eyebrows. "I won't promise anything on behalf of the others since I've only been here a couple of days myself, but I can personally guarantee that the Toph-Man didn't go pawing through anybody's underwear."

I had been specifically referring to my journals and my array of needles, scissors, and other pointy objects that the airport had made me ship through the cargo hold rather than as a carry-on, but okay. Slipping in my hand, I eased out one of my peanut butter cracker packets and wondered if there was any chance of Leonard having an allergy to them. Such a shame if something were to happen to the guy whom we all so adored.

"Hey, Max-" Topher and I said together then, and both glanced sideways. "No, you go," we stumbled, and I put my hands up in surrender and bowed my head. We were back to playing the shy and socially-awkward nerd. My lid felt about to pop.

"Are you sure, Scarlett?" Topher pressed, removing the milk from the fridge and setting it out on the dining table beside the Cookie Crisp. "Really, I don't mind holding off."

"No, please. Go right ahead."

Max moved his eyes between us. "Whatever you want to ask, pointy-haired buffoon, spit it to my face. You're sapping up my precious time."

I kicked his ankle. _Play nice._ It didn't appear as though Topher witnessed the swift action. However, he almost certainly caught Max's flinch, and I could practically see his eyes flicker as dots connected within his brain anyway. He rubbed his nose.

"I really appreciate you getting my laptop hooked up to WiFi yesterday, but can I get you to take a look at the refrigerator? The temperature has been rising bit by bit every day, and if this keeps up then all our milk is going to go bad."

Flashing back to it, what I should have done was spin together some sort of excuse for Max not helping so that he and I could _finally_ talk after Leonard bothering us all morning. Apparently, I drew up a blank, because instead I found myself blurting, "How can eight teenagers - and that's excluding Max and I - on a houseboat possibly still have milk after being abandoned here for nearly two weeks?"

"Me and Max."

"What?" I asked, narrowing my eyes as I joined him at the counter.

Topher shook his head. "They were out for awhile, but now Ella gets her friends to bring us stuff every day around noon. They've gone out to fetch the stuff right now, but the request list is magneted right up here on the fridge if you want to add something else to it."

I watched Max stand there before the open refrigerator door, his dark blue eyes shut as he let the cool air seep over him. "And by 'friends' you mean Pahkitew Island's unique fauna, I suspect?"

"Uh-huh. They go ga-ga over her. Hey, Scarlett. Do me a favor and lend me that pencil sticking out of your case?"

I didn't have a particular reason not to, so I did. Topher scribbled 'peaches' and 'cherries' onto the list. Then he rolled it back. I caught it just as it tipped over the edge of the counter.

"I can fix this," Max decided. He cracked his knuckles and dumped the contents of his backpack onto the hard floor. Wrenches, wires, and a hot glue gun all clattered out among notebooks, how-to guides, and scraps of metal. There was very little use attempting to plot with him when he slipped into this state: Possibly it was a gift and possibly it wasn't, but Max's mind was simultaneously sharp and dull, rendering him all but physically unable to focus on more than one item at a time. The rest appeared to be absolute white noise to him, even if you stood in front of him waving your arms and he maintained a stare of eye contact for the entire duration of the rant. Believe me, I've tried on multiple occasions, and I've learned to tell from the glazed sheen of his entire flat face when he's too deep in the flow zone to crawl out of it. If I were to perform a thorough examination of his anatomy, I rather suspect I would discover that he had more intense selective hearing than all of the Phyllostomidae family combined.

Instead, I refocused my attention on Topher. "How well have the others fared relationship-wise post their eliminations from the competition? In particular, if it wasn't obvious, I am referring to Amy and Sammy and their tendency to tear one another to shreds."

Topher nibbled on his lower lip, squinting at the ceiling. He and I had exchanged two or three talks about those two either outside of the confessional or while hunting for food or leaning against the side of the Kinosewak treehouse, so I knew something was bothering him when he carefully phrased his statement of, "They're much the same as they were when last we saw them fighting at the boardwalk. Except…"

He waited there with the bait dangling. I tilted up one eyebrow and refused to grab it, refused to look away, refused to so much as glance at the jar of crunchy peanut butter perched beside the sink with its lid red and bright and tempting. After several seconds, he said, "It's been a sharp downwards slope for both of them."

"I was rather fond of Amy," Max mused, still tapping his chin as he knelt on the floor and studied his supplies. "She knew how to both run a tight ship and organize an evil picnic." He whistled twice before sinking down to his stomach and shoving a screwdriver into the lower panel of the fridge. "Plus, she displayed valiant courage in that fight against the foul donkey girl and Scuba Bear."

"Samey, Max. That last one was Samey."

"Pfft. Tut, tut, Scarlett. My mind is bright enough to tell them apart. Samey was eliminated after the doom balloon challenge. All right, now what… what was I doing with this again? Oh, fiddles. This isn't the screwdriver I meant to pick up at all. Curses. It appears as though the crash bent my phillips. Whatever became of my clamps?"

I scratched an ant bite (sting, Max had chided me the previous day- ant _sting_ ) near my wrist. "What about all the others present on this houseboat? Dave seemed pretty upset in regards to Sky's rejection and public humiliation of him, not that he didn't bring it on himself, and I believe he may be prone to lashing out if he has yet to do so. Is there anyone, aside from Leonard, whom I ought to particularly watch my back around?"

"Hm. Dave hasn't come out of his room except for food and the bathroom. The Geminis are both plain savage. Turns out that Amy's the only one of us who actually has experience driving the motorboat, though, so you'll definitely want to be on her good side if you want to go out in it. I've experimented and can now confirm that shameless flattery is definitely _not_ the way to her heart, but if you find some common ground and work your way upwards, you can snag her easily enough. Just takes a bit more patient conversation than you might first expect."

"Yes, I had Amy show me everything that's stashed in the motorboat storage compartments yesterday once she, Rodney, and Ella came back in. She was only too happy to give me a brief rundown on how to drive it, now that she and I are roommates here during our stay and all."

"You've gotten to know Leonard. Ella I… don't talk to anymore after our paths crossed before she had her morning coffee." Topher touched the gash down his cheek that I'd half-noticed yesterday. "Rodney always throws the game when he's playing strip poker, and you shouldn't be surprised if he isn't in the boat a lot. He builds impressive sandcastles along the beaches. Apparently there was a huge sand-flinging fight that I missed a couple days ago. And then Beardo is, well…"

"Well what?" I asked, realizing too late that I had succumbed to my own curiosity.

"It's difficult to tell for certain what goes on inside his head, what with his social awkwardness and everything." He arched one very suspicious eyebrow. "Which I'm _sure_ you can relate to, Scarlett."

I continued to hold his gaze, even as Leonard came wandering out of his room and rummaged about the dining table behind me, perhaps interested in the cereal and such, though I didn't grace him with a glance, and I definitely didn't look again at that jar of peanut butter. "I attempted to speak to him yesterday after I witnessed him driving the houseboat, but he wouldn't respond to any of my attempts at conversation despite my honest efforts. Merely, he mimicked the sound of thunderous applause. It put me in a very flustered position after a moment of it."

Tipping his head, clearing his throat, Topher slid his eyes back to Max, who had finally managed to unscrew the panel from the refrigerator's base and wrench out a handful of wires and metal. "Don't take this the wrong way, but you _are_ new here and Beardo only talks to people he likes, or sometimes if he's in a really good mood, or sometimes if you get him really flustered or worried and he wants to help. Don't ask about the rap battle- I heard from Samey that _someone_ here screwed up big time." ("Hey, I was pure dragoncoin gold!") "Mostly, he just relays messages through Leonard."

"He's do'ng better now than Day 1," Leonard mumbled through a mouthful of cereal. "And who in TOM's name left the milk out on the table so it would get warm right before I was about to have breakfast at ten like I always do?"

… Oh. Selective mutism. Because Beardo most certainly fell on the spectrum of-

Oh.

Well, _now_ I felt like a judgmental idiot. It didn't give him a free pass to be annoying, but at least I had my explanation for his peculiar behavior now. How did I miss that?

Topher boosted himself up onto the counter and, crossing his right leg over his left, held his knee loosely near his chest. "You're pretty sharp, Scarlett, so you know what a stereotypy is, right?"

"I would not consider myself an uneducated moron."

He grinned. Over the sound of Leonard muttering imaginary spells to cool down his milk, he said, "That wasn't the question. Is someone defensive?"

I curled my fingers into the granite counter until they scratched. "What precisely is it that you wish to say?"

He made a hand motion near his ear that suggested he was filing my reaction away for future analysis. I didn't care. "Well, a stereotypy is a repetitive comf-"

"Yes, Topher. I've lived with my psychologist grandfather for the last six years. I've studied every page of the DSM-IV a dozen times over. I think I know what a stereotypy is."

He shrugged that off and swung his leg. "Beardo does the oral behavior because, like a grazing animal, he feels threatened and insecure when placed in an unfamiliar environment. The mouth movements calm him down. Zebras only take a drink when it's safe. Evolutionary perspective. That type of thing. Leonard's been trying to ease him out of it, but you can see how far he's gotten. You aren't the only one who gets frustrated here. I only address him as Beard-o instead of Be-air-doh like it's supposed to be, and even that won't produce a response out of him. He's shy to the point where it's maladaptive."

"Did you really just explain all of that to me so you could hear your own voice and gain a sense of validation?"

"Yes." Topher touched his chest, and I think twisted his expression to look… defenseless? Either that or sickened. Hard to tell without the glasses. "Your approval matters to me. No one here ever listens to what I have to say, Scarlett. You're the only one who understands."

"Uh-huh."

"I listen to you," Leonard protested behind me, rattling his spoon around his bowl as he stirred cereal. "You're the one who combed over my contract for Ridonculous Race with me like a praying _mantisifly gigantiwizzicus_ all yesterday, right? How's that for listening? Hey, I never asked. Why did you even have a copy of one of those crumpled up in the bottom of your bag anyway?"

"Gee," Topher said with utter sarcasm, "why did I, indeed? Maybe I was rejected for a previous season. Maybe I am legally forbidden from participating on it as a contestant. Maybe I - I don't know - can find these kinds of things with a simple Google search? All I know is that I certainly haven't been dropping hints about it since I found out at the zeppelin dock that you and Tammy got accepted. Do you watch the Race, Scarlett? Totally rad, am I right? Pretty sure I'm right. I'll make a totally great host for it someday, don't you think?"

"I almost always have more useful ways to spend my time and don't watch crap often, but yes, I did skim through a few episodes and regretted it. Season 16 was not Don's proudest moment. What was it he said to that red-haired cookie-baking princess of a girl again? 'In an alternate universe where you were fifteen years older, I'd totally ask you out'? If I'm not mistaken, the Internet was crawling for a week with articles on how that statement negatively affected the views and opinions of both the audience and the other contestants. I've also heard Don mention his son on air by name a few times, and I wonder if he wasn't too happy with his custodial parent's comment either."

He curled his lip.

Max hopped to his feet and dusted his hands. "Well, grubby fools, it pleases me to announce that we are well on our way to a cooler fridge once again. Excuse me while I grab that toolbox and those hoses from up on the top deck where I last saw that red-headed nitwit, Rodney."

"You're fixing it?" Leonard asked, and immediately followed his statement with, "I'm not the one who broke it."

Inwardly, I clashed my teeth. "Fine. When you're done with that, come join me up front so we can finally have a moment to talk." I didn't bother telling him to hurry. Max hurried through everything. I took his pulse once when we'd shared the treehouse back on the island, and even it was moving at double the speed I'd expected. With a nod, he opened the sliding door in the rear of the boat and bounded up the stairs.

"Hey, Scarlett," Topher called, "before you go, can you do me a favor and toss me that paper cup sitting there on the table beside the milk?"

I did so with a shrug and headed towards the cabin with the steering wheel. No one was in there and the boat wasn't floating; we were still tied with ropes and stakes to the grizzled shore. I was just opening the door so that I might take a look at those driving controls when a thin voice cleared its throat.

"Scarlett, you're smart. May I talk with you a moment?"

Ella leaned against a silver railing on the front deck. No point in pretending I hadn't heard, so I sighed. Max got to play repairman, I got to play therapist. If I didn't want to reveal my true nature, there was little choice but to suck it up. Pushing through the fluttery insect curtain, I said, "You may. However, I must warn you that my help will come at a price. For every question you ask of me, I would like to ask one of you."

"Oh, that would be plenty fair enough." Ella smoothed a fold in her pink skirts. "I suppose I did ask if I could sit. Would you care to take your turn?"

"If you don't mind it. Is your primary gift the ability to enchant animals with your singing, or do you have pheromones or some other such enhancers that lead to that result?"

"It is through my singing. Now, my turn again." She paused, and we both listened to clomping feet from deeper in the houseboat. A muffled discussion. A twang of annoyance. A sentence with a comforting inflection. "It's… it's a boy. Actually, it's Leonard. How can I make him want to like me?"

"Don't bother; I just got here and even I can tell he's not interested in you. Can you define 'animal'?"

"An animal is any creature that walks or swims or flies and lacks the vocal chords to express itself in any human language. Is there a way I can make him interested in me?"

"Learning to fit in more with the crowd might prove to be a beneficial first step. So it doesn't work on humans?"

She scrunched her nose as Rodney came rushing up the hallway behind us, threw open one of the bedroom doors, and called for Beardo to get up, and quick. He responded with a noise like the alarm of an ambulance. "Not as such, no, nor on monkeys or macaws either. What exactly do you mean by 'the crowd'?"

I half-sighed, but deep within my throat so she wouldn't hear. "Back on the island, you and I were relegated to opposing teams. However, despite this social barrier, I did notice that you're an additive-subtype-gift animal attractant, and that it did appear to put off a few of your fellow teammates, namely Dave, Sugar, and Shawn. Perhaps Leonard too feels unnerved by it. As it is clearly an additive subtype as opposed to stable or restrictive, I imagine it will not be too terribly hard to scale it back some. So your singing has no effect on simians or parrots, yet it works on robots?"

"Well, yes. Technically, they're half-robots. Their hearts and minds are animal even if their bodies are coated with wires and a metal layer. Did you ever watch Season 1? Eadric, the bear who swallowed our monkey who swallowed our coin in the challenge where I was eliminated, happens to be the same bear who so horribly mauled that poor boy Cody, and he feels very, very sorry about it." For a moment, Ella tapped her gloved fingernails against the rail. I heard Max spit a few scornful words from the top deck. "So, concerning Leonard, what would you suggest I do, Scarlett?"

"Topher told me that Leonard has been trying his hardest to encourage Beardo to break from his shell and be more social towards you all, so I might suggest you make the attempt to befriend Beardo as well. If Leonard witnesses your kindness, that might capture his attention, and it will also give you the perfect excuse to spend your day within his earshot, if that's the type of thing you can stand."

"Really?" Ella's quivering lower lip broadened into a great smile. She stretched out her finger, and one of the purple birds that had been fluttering around our heads for the past several minutes alighted on her knuckle. "You think that will work?"

"Sure. It may behoove you as well if you are able to find some common ground in the terms of your interests."

She clapped her hands, somewhat squishing the poor songbird between her palms; upon realizing this, she engaged in a tremendous bout of apologies. So, yes. In an indirect, roundabout way, I'm the one responsible for spurring on Ella's devout fascination with the Barrier religion. I am really sorry about that, particularly since eight months later it zipped back around to bite both Ezekiel Foster and I in the posterior. Sorry. _Me_ and Ezekiel.

The insect curtain flipped open behind me as I finished speaking and Beardo, shirtless, shouldered his way through. He was carrying Leonard bridal style (which, judging from the screams, Leonard was none too happy about). But what most attracted my attention was that our little local wizard was dressed in what I can only assume were his pajamas- a blur of casual purple shirt along with those gray sweatpants. His dark brown hair lay in curls around his equally dark face. No fake beard dangled from his ears. Not a scrap of anything relatively mythical or even green to be found on his person. I'd expected him to have changed into a new set of robes after soaking his former set.

"Power-player! God-modder! Repent of your cheating ways, sinner, or I will be forced to call upon the Powers-Of-Above to avenge my damaged soul!"

More like his bruised ego. I tried and failed to stifle my groan. "Do I dare ask?"

Beardo stopped walking and gave me a quizzical stare for a few seconds. Then he made a dinging sound like a lightbulb had just flicked on in his head. "Yo S-Scarlett, you're s-s-smart, right?"

I about sprang out of my sweater. He really _could_ talk!

… Which, looking back on it, really shouldn't have surprised me as much as it did. He was clearly in full possession of operational vocal chords, and Amy had even cautioned me about his gift for voice-mimicry yesterday morning.

Beardo was still waiting hopefully for my response. I rubbed my eyes with my pinkies. "Is there something you need?"

"It's Leo. He isn't right. May-bay you can figure out what ha-ha-happened to him, _tch_." Beardo set Leonard on gentle feet and straightened his shoulders. Instantly, Leonard bolted for the stairs and raced up to the top of the houseboat, still hollering complete magical nonsense and curses of, "May Great TOM's eraser smudge your outlines and may your character development be sharply negative in nature!"

"Oh." Beardo stared after his friend, lips drawn tight. "May-bay lay-tare, yeah?"

"Never mind. The two of you stay here and I'll check up on him." Abandoning Ella and Beardo, I scaled the steps and, as I'd expected, found Leonard badgering a horrified Max. Amy, Sammy, and Topher looked on, leaning their elbows against the miniature smoothie-serving machine that we apparently had on the counter up here and I hadn't noticed due to Leonard formerly blanketing it with a quilt and insisting that none of us touch. Foolishly, I'd written it off as a delusional nerd thing and hadn't bothered to check what was underneath. When I was through with him, I would definitely be coming back for a green apple.

My plan in coming up here after hearing Max's voice had been to flip Leonard over the side of the houseboat again, this time aiming for a more shallow area where he was likely to bash his skull open on a jagged rock, but I hadn't counted on running into the twins. Witnesses. I backed down the stairs, but then _Max_ decided to throw me under the wreckage of the hypothetical zeppelin.

"Scarlett, help! This sinister woodpecker child is trying to repossess the evil materials I need to transform the kindly and unsuspecting fridge into my loyal robotic minion!"

"Fighting words from a hobbit!" Leonard snapped, yanking on the trail of hose. "How under Earth did you even untangle all of these in the course of a single morning? I messed them up perfectly! Those are mine! I had them all connected specifically to my moonlight-draining device so I might draw upon the lunar powers and finally channel the energy I require to best Sir Rodney when it comes to sand castle building!"

Just on my left, Topher held a bundle of colorful straws near his face like a microphone. "Ooh, and Len comes out swinging hard and bruising deep. How will Max respond to such ad hominem foul play? Is Scarlett really about to get involved? And, the question I know you all are bursting to ask, who will our victor be? Find out, after this."

Stifling my grimace, I leaned against the smoothie counter with Topher and the twins. "Leonard, could we possibly draw up a compromise between us? Max is planning to put the hoses in question to real, actual, beneficial use for the population of the entire houseboat." My eyes wandered to the jagged, gaping hole in the floor of the deck, situated approximately where I imagined the bathroom to be below, though I certainly didn't remember noticing such a hole any time that morning, nor the day before or the night of our arrival. "You're both acting like prepubescent children, and that's an insult to both yourselves and the rest of the people on this boat. So, Leonard, if you would be so kind…?"

" _No_! I don't want to share!"

"Leonard. Please."

He yanked. Max yanked back the other way. " _Eih_! Release my face, you imbecile!"

"No!"

"Leonard."

"No! Tammy and I bought these with our allowance, I brought them here, I set them up, I dealt with the rain, I'm already using them, and they're mine!"

I snapped my fingers in Topher's direction and pointed at Leonard. He about choked on his straw. His look was one of incredulous horror, or perhaps horrified incredulity, but when I cocked my eyebrow, he lowered his glass so it clinked twice against the bar counter.

"Leonard, I see that you're irritated that he didn't ask first to borrow your, er, hose things, and of _course_ you have a right to be, but it's not Max's fault. He's new here and he didn't know. Hypothetically, if say, Dave had brought rainbow goldfish crackers in his suitcase, which may in theory have happened to pop out while you and Beardo were running from the zeppelin crash and being pursued by robotic deer and rabbits, then would you take it and put them to use in your guaranteed-victory potion? Ooh, hey- how go those legal papers, anyway? Could the future Host With the Most possibly help you out with the double-checking your work and hunting down any last loopholes? Let me tell you, I know those contracts front and back."

Leonard looked like he _might_ be wavering as he and Max glared at one another over loops of hose, but he obviously didn't want to. He tightened his grip, even as his eyes began to soften. Then Amy chanted, "Fight, fight, fight," and they both broke into scuffling again. Topher shrugged at me and returned to his drink.

"Sorry, Scarlett," Sammy said as Leonard finally managed to shove Max against the railing and yank back his things, "but it looks like you just got _hose_ d."

She held out a hot pad. I took it warily. "What's this for?"

"That's a hot pad." Sammy snapped her fingers into imaginary guns and poked her tongue out the left side of her lips, almost startling me with just how much she resembled Topher. "To help you treat that serious burn, OHH!"

… What?

As Max skulked over beside me, scuffing his heels and twitching his fingers, Amy groaned. "Ugh, Samey. That joke is stupid, and anyway, it only works if you give her the hot pad _before_ she gets scalded. Once she's already been slammed, you have to offer her the aloe soap or a bucket of warm water or _something_ that makes relative sense. Seriously, get something right for once in your life. Gosh, you're so embarrassing."

" _Me_ get something right when you got eliminated first? _I'm_ the embarrassing one? You're the one who showed up on the dock blanketed in disgusting moss and lichens and finally looking on the outside like the monster you are inside!"

That incited Amy to hiss and lunge, but cheerleader instincts evidently kicked in and Sammy rolled away. In the process, she snatched the hot pad from my limp hand. While Amy scrambled up, bristling, Sammy spun on her heels and stalked off for the rear staircase. "I am so telling Dad and Coach Holiday!" Amy shouted after her before returning with a snort to her smoothie.

"Personally," Leonard said, elbowing me in the chest with a much more cheerful look now that he'd regained his belongings, "I thought she jabbed you good. You skipped directly into it like you need glasses. We could say she turned you… _scarlet_."

I despise everyone on this boat without regret. Look at that. Just, look at it. That is not a pun. That is nothing but a failed attempt at humor devised of pure sadness.

Nonetheless, as Topher broke into snickers, I stuck out my chin. "May I remind you, I can be content in the knowledge that I don't use delusions as a coping mechanism to cover up my insecurities."

Leonard gasped, hugging the loops of hose to his thin chest beneath the purple sweatshirt. Then he tossed them all through the hole in the deck floor. "Scarlett, how can you _say_ something so cruel? Max is _right_ there!" He lunged forward and clamped his hands over Max's ears as he finished with, "You're going to shatter his fragile psyche!"

I… didn't have a retort for that, clever or otherwise. Instead, I nodded towards the hole where the ends of the hoses trailed away, slinking like _ophiophagus hannahs_ as they vanished one by one. "Who or what was the object or person that managed to form this crater? I recognize that the island is unstable, but of all the environmental changes prone to springing up throughout it, I certainly would rank a falling asteroid as a serious scientific improbability."

"Yes, that would be quite silly," Leonard agreed, releasing Max as Max spat unsavory things at him and flailed his arms at the place where Leonard had chucked the hoses. "No asteroid formulated that gash in the deck with such precision. I made it myself, of course. That's my room down there."

"… You carved a hole in the roof of your one and single bedroom?"

"Utter blabberchat buffoon," Max seethed, shoving his hands into his pockets.

"Certainly I did, Scarlett. In that way I can channel the power of the moonlight directly into my brain while I sleep, as well as all my vials and my potion cauldron. Marvelous, is it not? Direct moonlight is always vastly superior to the artificial kind the mere unblessed types of people offer at Whole Foods. Ha. Whole Foods indeed."

Please note how I did not roll my eyes in front of his face. "You're brilliantly resourceful, Leonard. Might I inquire, did this happen prior or following the rains that shut both teams up in their respective domiciles for most all of the entire day following your elimination?"

"Oh, it was before the floodgates of the heavens burst open," he admitted. He stood silently, staring into the distance, and gave a great shudder. But, flipping back into his typical oblivious cheer, he sat himself down by the hole and dangled his legs through it. "It also makes a fabulous secret passage. See, watch. Ahem. _Verticalus transporticallifor_!"

He dropped onto his bed. Mattress springs squealed, and he rolled over and waved up at us, flashing that infamous gap-toothed grin. Max _harrumph_ ed beside me.

"What part of 'Evil mastermind tickling you in your sleep' does not compute in this wretched fool's head?"

I studied the hole a little longer as Leonard unlocked his door and bounced into the hallway. After a couple minutes, which Max spent either with his hands clasped behind his back or seeking out various other pieces of assorted equipment from around the smoothie counter and the blue sleeping mats, I turned around. "Is there any way you can fix the fridge later, Max? Our morning has dragged on quite long enough as it is, and I would very much like to talk with you personally now. It's rather important, as it concerns our plans for the evening."

Topher, Amy, and even Ella, who had come to check up on us a couple minutes ago, started up an, "Oooh…" chant like they were first graders. I deadpanned them until they stopped. Appreciate that, because what I really wanted to do was run over to the opposite end of the deck where Max was, scoop him up, run back, and use him as a battering ram to send all three of them plunging over the railing.

Amy flicked her straw. "To be honest, I can't fault you for liking him. It's pretty handy having someone around who can build anything. Topher says you guys have been a thing practically since Day 1 - something about Ben Franklin and a red wagon effect - but if we're still here and you stop being an item, are we cool if I get in on this?"

I didn't move.

"Really?" Topher asked, suddenly looking interested again. "And here I thought you, me, and Leonard were all, you know… Max isn't exactly what I'd call a handsome catch, but you do what works for you."

Amy flicked her hair over one shoulder. "I can live with that if he keeps up the infinite-WiFi-anywhere and mind-control thing. It never hurts to be more beautiful in comparison. I think I can get in on this evil biz."

 _I was rather fond of Amy,_ Max had told us at the fridge.

Crap. I couldn't afford this. Grinding my teeth, I forced myself to smile. "I'm sorry, Amy, but I know for a fact that Max isn't interested in pursuing any sort of relationship with a girl."

"So… you did ask him, then?" Topher checked.

"I did not. I wouldn't date that potato if I were offered the million dollars up front."

Amy blinked innocently, but those eyes glinted with the purest evil coals that I had witnessed in a long while. "If you haven't asked, then how do you know he wouldn't like me?"

"I… know simply because he wouldn't."

They laughed and waved me off. Flushing, hating myself, trying to convince my own brain that I had stuttered in order to keep up my socially awkward and nerdy persona and not because I had actually been fumbling for an answer, I marched back to join Max. He'd finally settled on examining a metal box affixed to the deck near the stairs and that appeared to be some sort of lighting fixture, though I didn't spare it more than half a glance. "Come on," I snapped. "We're making a detour for peanut butter, and then we have important work to do."

"Whatever you say, Scarlett."

I took the steps with care, clinging to the guard rail, while Max thumped behind me with a little less balance. "First off, if we plan to take over this houseboat, it's crucial that no one suspect us until it's too late. We must be polite, we must not pick fights, and we must-"

" _Tcah_." Max rolled his eyes. "I remember. We must 'know thy enemy and flatter thy foe'. I used that trick to wheedle the evil watering can from the windowsill during breakfast yesterday, remember? But why must we continue to suppress our distaste for _Leonard_?"

We reached the rear dock. I stepped over a green canoe and headed for the glass doors, still listing items off on my fingers. "Because it would appear that annoying as he is, he's fallen in favor with the crowd due to his encouraging Beardo from his shell, and I don't wish to stir up any negative emotions against us, that's why." Arriving at the door, I grabbed the handle and slid it open to reveal the kitchen. Sammy lay on the couch playing her DS. Half a meter away, Beardo sat with Leonard's robes pulled almost halfway over his chest (which was about as far down as I imagined they could get), embracing the shirtless wannabe wizard tight enough to bring tears to his eyes.

All right…? Both of them could do so much better, but I wouldn't judge them here and now. That could wait until I was alone and my to-do list for the day was complete. I supposed this would explain why our friendly neighborhood crazy wasn't interested in Ella.

All three of them looked up and blinked as Max and I paused in the doorway. I could practically see the gears clicking in their heads as they reached the same conclusion I had. Beardo ripped Leonard's robes from his head, gasping like a fire alarm and staring at his upturned palms as though they dripped with blood. Sammy just doubled over in guffaws so heavy that they knocked her clean off the couch. Leonard clapped one palm to his eyes and stammered, "U-um… this mostly isn't quite what it looks like. I… I have a girlfriend, I thwear!"

Sure you do, nerd. If anyone does, you of all people would. I strode in, grabbed the peanut butter from where it still sat by the sink, twisted on my heels, and walked out again, snagging Max by the back of the collar as I went. I wasn't even going to bother. If we were going to be talking strategy, I wanted to do it in a more secluded place.

That place turned out to be the green canoe. Max and I shoved off, and I let him work the paddles while I nestled into my seat and popped off the lid to the peanut butter.

"Right." I swiped my finger through the jar and stuck it in my mouth. "Leonard's trapdoor, so called, may be our answer. Once we strike, it will lend us the perfect getaway should anyone attempt to pursue us around the boat. What we most need to do is set up some sort of ladder or box or step-stool that will allow us to jump onto Leonard's bed and scramble up and out to the top deck. If absolutely necessary, we could jump over the edge and swim to shore should we be caught."

Max smirked, then flipped into a slightly-strained face as he churned the canoe paddles. We listed dangerously to the left. "Not that we would be caught, of course. I suppose it's always vital for every evil operation to have a backup plan in place."

"Yes, I suppose it is. I have a few sharp objects bundled up in my suitcase that are likely to prove useful to us if need be. The best course of action to take, I think, is use them to threaten everybody aside from the two of us off the houseboat and onto the shore. Then, you'll sever the ropes that anchor us to the shore and continue to ward the others off while I back up the boat and we set off on a course for the mainland. We will take no prisoners and no offers of loyalty, no matter how much they plead and beg. We will not compromise. They may turn on us in an instant. Are there other assets we possess that I have yet to mention?"

"I have the mosquito gun that I constructed from the bug zapper yesterday, along with the evil watering can with its growth formula and a blaster ray I am currently in the process of scraping together using a few pieces I found from under the fridge and on the top deck."

"Excellent," I said, with approximately zero milligrams of confidence in its ability to work. "We'll do it tonight, right before dinner. That way the others won't gobble up our food supply and we should have enough to last us all the way back to the mainland; once Ella's gone, her 'friends' might not do our grocery shopping for us."

Max stuck his lower lip out in a pout. "And I requested peppermint to be delivered tomorrow."

"Max, when we get back to the mainland, I'll buy you a garbage bin's worth of peppermint." I shifted in my seat. The water slapped the edges of the canoe with the sound of a stirring stick in a vial (Don't tell Leonard I said that or he'll make a potion joke). "Additionally, whoever is next eliminated is almost certain to squeal about what really happened the night we were eliminated, and then those here will lose all trust they have in us and never let us go through with this. We only got lucky that there were no eliminated campers yesterday. I suspect we have a combination of our triple-challenge sleepless night and the malfunctioning, unstable island to thank for that."

We drifted about for several minutes more before Max's clumsy arms dunked us under. I managed to keep my tongue bitten until it nearly swelled as we both clung on to it and floundered our way back to the houseboat. No sharks preyed upon us, fortunately enough.

In the kitchen, I flipped on the TV and sprawled across the couch as Max began to study the fridge again. "But to pull this off," I reminded him as he strained to reach the higher shelves with his diminutive body structure, "we'll have to be as inconspicuous as possible. Whatever happens, we do not want to stand out from the group. Do you understand and agree with this?"

"Indubitably." But he twitched. Ah, that was right- He wanted to turn his sad and pathetic name into one that evoked fear in the hearts of men. He thrived on attention. Hm. He wouldn't make this easy for me, would he? If I didn't keep a close eye on him, almost certainly he'd let slip some telltale-

Topher slashed into my thoughts by appearing in the hall with a loud, "Scarlett, Max; you guys wanna play blimpball with us?"

With them? With them all staring at me and wondering what had become of my glasses and me fretting about my hair slipping loose or tumbling into dirt and – hello – unable to make out much of anything further than a quarter of a meter from my nose?

"No thanks!"

"Certainly," Max said in the same heartbeat.

The others gave us a few patient blinks of their eyes, I think. We exchanged a hasty glance.

"I mean, we'd love to," I backpedaled, rubbing my forehead. You can do this, Scarlett. Just suck it up, get in good with the group. It's just one little ballgame.

Of course, just then he sputtered, "I would never be caught dead running about with any of you foul creatures."

Not helping.

I think Topher smirked. Finger guns flashed. Amy seemed to open her mouth, but before she could hiss a retort, Beardo coughed into his fist. "It works out well. If just one wants to. Play. We have an odd. Numbah anyway."

Max flinched. "You can talk!"

Subtle, Max.

"I can sit out," Ella offered, beaming like a firefly. Of course she would.

I yanked Max back by the elbow. "Sorry. Our hands are sufficiently occupied at the moment, and both of us are still quite fatigued from our challenges back at camp. Perhaps tomorrow."

"But Scarlett-"

I dragged him behind the wall and back into the kitchen. He returned to his fridge as the crowd drifted away towards the front of the boat and the beach, and I returned to digging through my suitcase to reassure myself of its contents. After several minutes, Max determined that his blaster ray was completed, although for some reason he couldn't enable it to function. Solving the problem was child's play for me; he'd left the solid black lens cap on, and the thing needed to absorb at least _some_ light before it was capable of firing. At first I was under the impression that the ray did merely that: shone blue light. But when I returned from the bathroom, I found the kitchen sink missing its faucet, and black soot sprinkled all around the gaping hole. Well.

A very small part of me was ticked off by Max's simple inability to pick up on the chinks in the outline that I had given him. They were so _obvious_. Any escape attempt into Leonard's room would end badly, seeing as the others could both stand outside his door and jump at us from above, and pin us into the corner until we surrendered. The houseboat was much too large and slow to make a getaway (Heck, the thing was practically a battleship). Ella's friends could catch up to us. Chris or the authorities could be alerted. There were flaws all over this thing.

Well. That's why it was the fake plan to throw him off my trail.

Noon had only just flickered into one o'clock. The originally idea had been to greenlight the scheme in the evening, what with darkness coming on, but as it appeared that everyone had left us here entirely alone, Max and I glanced at one another, shrugged, and got down to business.

First and foremost, I sent him off to scout the woods for the zeppelin and to see if they were yet on their way back while I enacted the first step of our supposed takeover plan. After waiting for two minutes to ensure that he wouldn't realize he'd forgotten something and come back to find me gone, I crept across the front deck of the houseboat and along the beach. Yes. The motorboat continued to bob there, just as it had the day before. Sticking to the tree shadows where I could, I untied it from its stakes and leapt in.

 _Keep low, Scarlett. Keep low._

I'd never driven a motorboat before, but I had driven a car, an ATV, a snowmobile, and a jet ski. How difficult could it be?

The keys were on the seat just as Leonard had promised. The motor roared. The boat bucked forward beneath my fingertips. My toes twitched. Unless they were quite a ways off, there was no conceivable way Max and the others hadn't heard that. Well, no turning back now.

I peeled into open water. Waves splashed and the boat lurched. When I glanced back, two fuzzy shapes had come running onto the narrow beach from the woods. From the colors, it was Rodney and one of the twins. Even when I'd first whipped out my hair back on the island, I had never felt so free.

Free! Free! No more Max! No more Leonard! No more Amy! No more Ella! No more Topher! No more Chris! No more Chef! No more-

The sky exploded with blue light above my head. I jerked on the steering wheel. "What the-?"

"Oh, drat," someone said behind me.

I whipped around. " _Maaaaax!_ "

He froze, his top half sticking up from the rear compartment of the boat. Even without my glasses on, I could figure out what was gripped in his hand and clenched up against his armpit. The ray gun. And, most certainly, he'd been aiming it at my back, because that's what I would have done. His knees were still tucked in the compartment, but as I glowered at him, I'd have bet they were knocking hard.

"Max, _what_ are you _doing_ here?"

"You tried to leave without me, Scarlett! You promised you wouldn't!"

"I was under the impression that I promised I wouldn't kill you today. A promise which I am seriously considering withdrawing now."

Max swallowed. "I… I shouldn't mention that I had to take out most of the food so I would fit in here, should I? The stuff that I witnessed you store in here yesterday? But I kept your peanut butter." He ducked, concealing everything but his fingertips and scruffy purple hair. "Because I know it's your favorite."

I groaned before I could stop myself. "Maxwell Magnanimous Zambar, I _will_ chuck you off this boat at ninety kilometers an hour."

"No," he said, "you have to drive."

I glared down at the dashboard compass, wondering how long the boat could continue forward if I wedged the gas pedal down with my shoe.

Forward, yes, but slamming full-throttle into a half-submerged rock was still a distinct possibility, and would almost certainly end in death or crippling injury. In the dark and without my glasses, I could barely avoid them as it was. And if the island's controls were still faulty and it was still shifting its dips and rises…

I had never been good with backup plans, much preferring to snag an opportunity when it fell in my lap and then ride it out to victory. My hindsight far exceeded my current vision. I really, really should've expected Max to sneak onto the boat- he was a burr in my sweater, after all. Why didn't I have a stupid backup plan to shake him off?

I frowned. The ocean… _looked_ clear ahead. Really, there shouldn't be many spires of rock so far from the shore. It was called 'open water' for a reason, after all. I drove on in silence for a moment more, squinting at the waves. It didn't help. I was _probably_ safe. Eighty-five percent.

A dark- What was-? Had that been a dorsal fin up ahead? I didn't hate a lot of things about myself, but the one thing I hated most of all was that _I couldn't flipping see_ , and every attempt I had ever made at correcting that problem had only made it worse.

… Okay, so maybe I was seventy percent safe.

Something smacked against the boat's hull. A wave. Or that shark.

Fifty.

"Max," I snapped over my shoulder, and he made a little "Greep!" "Up at the prow. Now. I need you as my eyes."

That was what I loved about Max- He never asked questions, because he always understood. He didn't ask for anything in return (the pleasure of my company was enough). He didn't ask if I had changed my mind about wanting to pulverize him (I hadn't). He didn't even ask if this made us friends again (which was fortunate, because I wasn't sure how I would have answered that). No, he scrambled past me and took up a perch at the nose of the boat, his knees planted on the cushion, the ray gun at the ready in his hand.

"Rock," he called, pointing starboard. I swerved left. "Canoe," he said a moment later, gesturing to port side. Then, "Shark," and he fired at that in a crackle of electric blue. We both laughed as we plowed on through the dark. Max kept his back facing me. Bonus. If he started to get annoying, I could probably slink up and flip him overboard before we crashed into anything else.

Max twisted around as if my thoughts had jumped from my brain to his. He cocked the blaster, smile smug. "Tut tut, Scarlett. You and I both know you could never bring yourself to do it."

"Of course not." I set my teeth in a grin. "I have to drive."


End file.
